Ratko Mladic: From hunter to hunted to held

By Los Angeles Times Staff

May 26, 2011 midnight

Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general accused of overseeing the worst massacre in Europe since the end of World War II, is on trial at The Hague. Mladic was one of Europe’s most wanted war crimes suspects until his arrest near Belgrade in May 2011.

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A wounded Sarajevo resident sits in shock next to two other seriously wounded civilians moments after one of several mortar shells landed in central Sarajevo on June 22, 1992.
(Santiago Lyon / Associated Press)

Shortly after a Feb. 29 referendum in Bosnia-Herzegovina that endorsed independence from Yugoslavia, the forces of Ratko Mladic begin a four-year siege of Sarajevo.

The United Nations’ tribunal on Balkan war crimes issues indictments against Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief, General Ratko Mladic, charging them with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In January NATO and Bosnian Serb police search Pale on a tip that Radovan Karadzic needs medical help, but find nothing.

December 2004

Head of the European Union military force says he has evidence that, within the last six months, the Bosnian Serb army hid Radko Mladic in an underground bunker facility in Veliki Zep, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is found dead in his prison cell at The Hague. Milosevic, 64, had been on trial on genocide charges for the “ethnic cleansing” campaign in Bosnia-Herzegovina and on charges of crimes against humanity and other war crimes for his role in the conflicts in Croatia and Kosovo.

After months of warnings, the European Union suspends talks with Serbia on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, putting EU membership hopes on hold. The dramatic turn of evens was set in motion by Belgrade’s failure to meet an EU demand to deliver Ratko Mladic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague.

The war crimes trial of Ratko Mladic opens in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Mladic faces 11 counts of genocide, murder, persecution, terrorism and hostage-taking, including the 1995 slayings of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica. He denies all of the accusations.

Elvedin Pasic, a 34-year-old Bosnian Muslim, is the first witness to give testimoney at the United Nations trial of Ratko Mladic. Mladic, who faces 11 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for allegedly masterminding Serb atrocities throughout the 1992-95 Bosnian war, is the last top-ranking suspect to go on trial at the U.N. court